This week in the war on workers: Suspending kindergarteners for being regular kids?

The "no excuses" education model is a specialty of some charter schools, most famously New York's Success Academies. The rules, and the outcomes, are shocking:

At Success Academy Prospect Heights, students are required to avoid committing any one of 65 infractions that take six pages to explain. The code of conduct, Merrow says, labels as infractions everything from “bullying and gambling to littering and failing to be in a ready-for-success position.” Getting out of a seat without permission or calling out an answer are infractions as well, and it doesn’t take many to get suspended.

Merrow said that at Success Academy Prospect Heights, which enrolled 203 kindergartners and first graders last year, Principal Monica Komery issued 44 suspensions — all to 11 students.

Seriously, these are rules being applied to five- and six-year-olds:

Shouting out an answer once is considered a Level 1 offense, but doing it again is a Level 2 offense — as is getting out of a seat without permission — which could lead to a suspension.

These schools have high attrition rates, and many parents and observers argue that harsh discipline is used to force out the kids who will provide challenges ... or not do well on the all-important standardized tests. Eva Moskowitz, the politically connected head of Success Academies, dismisses that idea as "crazy talk," but there's no arguing with her schools' brutal discipline policies. Would Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan, or any of the other politicians so in love with charter schools subject their kids or grandkids to this model? Probably no more than they'd want their young adult children burned on the job and told to put mayonnaise on it. But if you're looking to train a submissive workforce, you start early.

Continue reading below the fold for more of the week's labor and education news.